Protester attempts to arrest Tony Blair in Hong Kong

A protester heckled former British prime minister Tony Blair as he prepared to
make a speech on religion and globalisation at the University of Hong Kong.

4:21PM BST 14 Jun 2012

Mr Blair was in Hong Kong for the inaugural speech of his Tony Blair Faith Foundation, aiming to promote understanding between different faiths.

A British-born Hong Kong-based activist, Tom Grundy, attempted a citizen's arrest of Blair – later citing breeches of the Geneva Convention and several other international codes – as the former leader took the stage.

As Mr Grundy approached the podium at which Blair was speaking, he was threatened with police action and left the auditorium peacefully.

"I attempted a citizen's arrest against Tony Blair today because back in 2009 he admitted he would have gone to war with Iraq regardless of the WMD's [Weapons of Mass Destruction], and that means it's in defiance of the Nuremburg Principles, the UN Charter, the Geneva Convention, and a pending International Criminal Court, a Rome Statute," Mr Grundy said after his outburst.

"He misled the British people, he's caused the deaths of 100,000 people at least, and there was some obligation on Hong Kong police to actually arrest him," he added.

Mr Blair was British prime minister between 1997 and 2007, and has come under increased scrutiny for taking Britain into the US-led war in Iraq in 2003.